26 community organisations have won contracts to provide English and Māori medium schools with learning experiences outside the classroom.

The Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom initiative complements the local curriculum. It supports around 500,000 students each year to participate in learning activities at zoos, museums, historic parks, art galleries, outdoor education facilities, performing arts, and virtual learning experiences.

These kind of learning experiences increase students’ awareness of their community and gives them hugely valuable experiences that can’t be recreated in the classroom.

This initiative provides opportunities for schools to work with the community to provide unique and interactive educational opportunities and for students to develop critical thinking skills and learn key competencies such as collaboration, communication, problem solving, and ethical and safety awareness.

The 26 community organisations are contracted to provide experiences covering maths, science and technology for a 3 year period. These are in addition to another 46 ongoing contracts covering arts, health and physical education awarded in 2015 and social sciences and languages awarded in 2016.

The total annual amount of funding for the initiative across the curriculum is $4.9 million.